


When your best just doesn't cut it

by TheSpaminator



Series: Superwondercorp prompt AU [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Kara and Diana are distraught, Lena is the best girlfriend in the world, Soft Girlfriends, she makes everything better, supportive girlfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 21:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12308370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaminator/pseuds/TheSpaminator
Summary: Diana and Kara couldn't save them all. They tried, they really did. But they couldn't. This is how Lena puts them back together.Find me on the internet:Twitter,Tumblr





	When your best just doesn't cut it

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an anonymous tumblr prompt I was sent:
> 
> kara/lena/diana prompt: Kara and Diana have a rough day fighting bad guys and protecting innocents. Sometimes they aren't able to save everyone. Lena comforts them and reminds them that they are always wonderful and good and valid.

National City was no stranger to bad days, not by a long shot. Enough attacks by terrorist organizations, invasions from malevolent aliens, and governmental bodies dictating events to their own benefit and you tend to become a little desensitized.

 

That day though, the day they were all still living through, wandering as though dazed. That day was too terrible for even the extremely hardy denizens of National City to shrug off. Cadmus had struck again, this time proving to be far more despicable in their schemes. Usually they were far more transparent with their goals and desires, it was easy enough to see what their motivations were and counteract them before things got too bad.

 

Not this time. They had finally come to the realization that Wonder Woman was in NC to stay. That they no longer had to just worry about the Maid of Might. Or Guardian. They had a veritable cornucopia of superheroes ready and waiting to foil any nefarious plot they could come up with.

 

So they got smart. They sent out bomb threats, which in and of itself was nothing out of the ordinary for them. It came right out of the super villain play book. However they sent out _dozens_ of bomb threats across the entire city, each one with a different and individual transmitter and trigger. The signals couldn’t be traced to each other, finding one signal meant you found, well, one. There were far too many to find in the time remaining before their detonation. Neither was there any single source which could halt each and every one with a flick of a switch or press of a button or code to be entered. They had been set and they would go off, with or without Cadmus.

 

Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Guardian, the DEO, everyone did their best. But there were simply _too many._ So the heroes and gatekeepers of the innocent did the only thing they really could. They went to schools, malls, skyscrapers, any single place with the largest cross section of citizens who were vulnerable and most at risk. Where the largest concentration of people were who would be affected by an imminent blast.

 

They got most of them. But there were a few, a handful, a scattering that they missed. There was nothing for it, nothing more could have been done. But still. They missed some.

 

***

 

Lena was pacing. Had she any of the powers her girlfriends possessed she likely would have worn a divot in the polished planks with her roving feet. The only thing she could do was wait so she paced, her hands ran restlessly through her hair, pulled at the stray threads in her sweater, her mouth set in a hard line. She had already watched events unfold on the news, but that was little consolation.

 

They weren’t back yet, and the CEO was on the verge of a panic attack. She was for the most part sure they were fine, they were rather indestructible and 99 times out of 100 they returned home with nary a scratch between them. But there was that 1 left, and regardless of the probability Lena found herself always thinking _this is it. This is the 1 time they don’t come home._ These thoughts ran through her head 100 times out of 100. It was exhausting, but the relief she always felt when they came home safely washed through her and swept those fears away. Seeing them safe was worth the stress, every time. The warmth and reassurance her girlfriends offered her following their battles always eased her out of her fear, the two heroes consistently dedicating time to comforting their human counterpart.

 

When the front door finally clicked open, the raven haired woman spun in place with equal parts relief and need flashing in her eyes. She was halfway across the room to them when she stopped, seeing them clearly through her panic. They weren’t rushing towards her, they weren’t wearing pacifying smiles, and they weren’t sweeping her up in their strong arms.

 

Instead, their faces were drawn. Their eyes seemed dull, their shoulders were held under their ears and arms crossed protectively across their stomachs.Two sets of feet shuffled across the floor, no real destination seeming to fill their movements with purpose. They were just, drifting.

 

Lena’s heart broke, and she realized that today she wasn’t the one in need of comfort. So she buried her needs, and to a degree she adopted her CEO persona so she could put on a mask. Usually she would put on the stoic, cold mask necessitated by her position, but today she used that ability to put on the image of calm and collected. She shrugged into the mantle of caring, radiating a strength which proves her capability of carrying goddesses.

 

She slowly walked forwards, briefly passing behind the two statuesque women to close and lock the door they’d left ajar in their haze. The mortal woman turned and passed between Kara and Diana, pulling one of their limp hands from their waists into each of her own. Walking slowly so as not to jolt them far too abruptly from their states, Lena led them to the large and deep couch in their living room.

 

It took minimal effort for her to gently push them to sit, leaving them just long enough to gather their favourite blanket and toss it in the dryer for a short cycle. She returned to her girls and pulled their shoes off, then divested them of their jackets. Their eyes met hers as she did so and they evoked a thanks tinged with such a sadness that Lena’s already broken heart ached with the desire to shelter them from this pain. They’d already experienced so much, why more? Why them? As she put their shoes and coats aside she was internally grateful they’d had the wherewithal to don their civilian clothes before finding their way back as though following some sort of homing beacon. Lena wouldn’t know it then, but that’s what she was to them. She was what brought them home every time.

 

Once she’d made them more comfortable, she got up and went to the kitchen to prepare cups of hot chocolate. It was the comfort drink of choice for all three of them, though they took it slightly differently. Diana liked a sprinkle of cinnamon on top to cut the sweetness with a little tart. Kara liked marshmallows crowding the surface, making it difficult to drink but leaving her with an adorable little fluff moustache. And Lena liked the tiniest bit of decadent whipped cream.

 

She brought the drinks into the living room, guiding the heroes hands to grasp their own mugs. They gripped when prompted and instantly tugged the warm pottery towards them, cradling it to their chests and inhaling the vapours. Lena squeezed their knees and got to her feet one last time, returning to the dryer and pulling out the toasty and soft blanket.

 

Finding her place on the couch, Lena settled between her girls and draped the blanket around all three sets of shoulders. Only once she was situated comfortably in the envelope of warmth she’d created did the desolate women sag into their seats, muscles uncoiling and lungs expelling despondency as they huddled as closely as able.

 

With two grief heavy heads resting on her shoulders, Lena turned and pressed a loving kiss to one brow and then the other. She didn’t say anything, only picked up her own mug from the table and took a long draw of her hot chocolate. And then she waited.

 

The blanket had cooled and mugs been emptied by the time any words were spoken.

 

“Thank you darling. We don’t deserve you.” Diana’s voice was choked, and her eyes squeezed tight enough for a few errant tears to escape and drip onto Lena’s skin.

 

“We couldn’t save them. We failed.” Kara barely managed to release those words before a broken sob crested in heaving lungs.

 

Lena’s heart swelled with love and sorrow for the women nestled in her embrace. “Neither of you are failures and you both deserve so much more than you realize. Least of all me.” The CEO tightened her hold on the invincible bodies in her grasp which for the first time, felt frail and vulnerable. “There was nothing more you could have done. Nothing. You saved so many.”

 

She could feel that her words hadn’t had the desired effect, no relief was present in the bones beneath her hands. “Being unable to do everything does not make you failures. You’re heroes. I know you don’t feel like it right now, but you are. You saved countless lives today. You did that. And don’t for a moment blame yourselves for Cadmus targeting people through your benevolence. They’re terrorists. If you had not been here, if aliens and superheroes were a thing of myths, they would have found another cause to rally against. You know this. Don’t let them use your goodness against you. Please.”

 

The bodies against her quaked, and ragged sighs were released to puff against Lena’s pale collarbones. Relief washed through Lena’s person, causing her to clasp her girlfriends even tighter yet.

 

“The city loves you and will not blame you for their losses. The city needs you. _I_ need you. The love I feel for you is not contingent on your feats of heroism or inability to save the world by yourself. I love _you_. All versions of you. And I wish you loved yourselves half as much as I do.”

 

Tears that had been held at bay in a misplaced sense of duty and defeat finally flowed freely as two sets of hands which could hold the world hostage if they so chose clutched tightly to Lena’s sweater in desperation.

 

Lena let them cry. And she held them through it all, never once failing to catch their tears, holding them so tightly that her own muscles ached with the sheer outpouring of affection she imbued her touch with.

 

They would be okay. If Lena needed to tell them how good, and kind, and faultless they were every day simply for them to understand and accept it, then that’s what she would do. She wold tell them over and over and over again until her words ran hoarse, until they failed her entirely. And then she would tell them with her touch, with her gaze, with her smile.

 

Even if it took her the rest of her life.

**Author's Note:**

> This is more angsty than I am known for, but I really liked the idea of Lena being the strong one. And it is more comfort than angst anyway. I hope I did this prompt justice to whoever it was that sent me the prompt!
> 
> Please comment, let me know what you though.
> 
> Love you my little pterodactyls
> 
> <3 Almighty Mama Dinosaur


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